Of all the confusing things I don’t think much beats the
drink drive limit and as I heard various reports that Cllr Shirley Tomlinson
was just over the drink drive limit and due to come before the court, I was
quite surprised to read the report that she was well over twice the limit.
The previous reports were 84mg with the limit being 80mg,
i.e. just over.
The UK, the alcohol limit for drivers is 80mg of alcohol per
100ml of blood, 35mg per 100ml of breath or 107mg per 100ml of urine.
So with a breath test the limit is 35mg, and not 80, all of
the above ways of measuring how sober you are equate to the same degree of
sobriety.
Back in the 60s when I first drove one was thought to be
safe on 2 pints of beer for the average bloke. Less for the ladies due to them
weighing less.
And certainly when I was a child it was quite normal to be driven around by an adult who had drunk a couple of pints at a country pub.
And certainly when I was a child it was quite normal to be driven around by an adult who had drunk a couple of pints at a country pub.
Personally I just don’t drink anything at all if I am going
to drive, so I haven’t looked into the issue, a quick delve of the internet
produced lots of confusing information, one interesting thing being that the
human body can only metabolise so much alcohol in 24 hours, somewhere in the
16 to 20 units a day area, 5 to 7 cans of strong beer or cider (3 units each) a day and you
would probably never be under the limit 24 7.
This also applies to two bottles of claret in 24 hours, you probably wouldn’t be under the limit until 24 hours after the first glass.
This also applies to two bottles of claret in 24 hours, you probably wouldn’t be under the limit until 24 hours after the first glass.
It also means if you got wrecked the night before you would
almost undoubtedly be over the limit the next day.
I think a bit over twice the limit equates to about a bottle of wine.
I think a bit over twice the limit equates to about a bottle of wine.
Anyway here is the link to
the latest report http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Thanet-councillor-Shirley-Tomlinson-banned/story-17486166-detail/story.html
Peter, I should think not. The question remains, should someone so irresponsible be making decisions on our behalf. Definitely not in my book. She should now do what it was reported she would at the time and step down.
ReplyDeleteThese are the limits for drink drive, which state that above this limit your judgement is impaired. If the same limits apply to councillors before they make decisions at council meetings, there is nothing to stop someone who has had “one too many” arriving by taxi and voting.
DeletePerhaps random drink and drugs testing at meetings should be instigated.
As Cllr Driver admits to drug use then this would potentially effect him too.
DeleteCllr Driver says things like to for reaction, but he would not drive a car pissed or anything else come to that - she could of killed a child!
DeleteSo he wouldn't drive while under the influence of drugs but might help make council decisions while drugged... is that it?
DeleteQuite a suprise to see the updated info on the limit because I, like Michael, went with the press there and assumed it meant she was just over, and therefore just a fine. This is considerably worse. A shame because she's much smarter than this.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this is the end for her as a Councillor because she has time to recover and as much as some anons will enjoy the opportunity to pile in with the criticism, she will be as hard on herself for this as anyone else.
What have the poor people of Garlinge done to deserve councillors with such low life standards.
DeleteAnd what have the people of Thanet done to deserve a local group of conservatives that defend them?
On election day people will be reminded in Garlinge, by leaflet, that they are represented by a drunk councillor, who could of killed someone, and a homophobic councillor who wished death on someone. Nice quality candidates with friends that protect them guyz and gals!
Well said John.
DeleteAnd they will still be voted in because the people of Thanet vote either Red or Blue, whoever represents them.
DeleteJames, I was also very disappointed to see that Shirley was off the planet and still driving. Don't you think the time has finally come to start cleaning up our act and finding Councillors who believe in representing the electorate rather than themselves. I wish I knew where we have found some of them from over the past 40 years. The party locally needs to wake up to the fact that with yet another scandal looming, we are likely to be cast into the wilderness at the next elections. The electorate are not stupid. The alternative of Iris and her henchmen in control again, pretending to be socialist and with very few brains cells between them, is frightening.
ReplyDeleteSee you could not resist sticking the knife into a downed Conservative for the second time and twisting it, Michael. She was stopped, found to be over the limit and will, quite rightly, be charged and tried by a court of law. That should be that, but no doubt the faithful on the left will milk this forever and a day. Sad if that is your manifesto, but if its not Tory toffs its Tory villains. No mention of all the Labour indescretions, jailbirds, fiddles, snouts in troughs or dropped trousers, that's just the lads being lads or, as Tony Blair once famously exclaimed "That's John" when his deputy thumped a member of the public. You lot get full marks for hypocrisy.
DeletePeter,
DeleteOn the other hand it may be the case that local labour miscreants are more assiduous in observing the 11th Commandment.
Peter, is it only local indescretions that count and how far back do you want to go. The point I am making is simply that these things are too politicised, or used for point scoring, instead of parties concentrating on what they can do for us, the tax payers.
DeleteYou know as well as I do that in this latest case, Shirley Tomlinson has been a dedicated councillor and a hard working member of the community. Yes, she has fallen from grace and must be mortified as a result, but does that suddenly negate all the good she has done before?
Elsewhere we have somne pretty nondescript, never heard from, allowance collecting, brain dead councillors, but they all all right because they have never been caught out having a glass of the juice ot taking a brown envelope or two. Is that what you mean.
Frankly, Peter, we want and deserve more councillors like Shirley Tomlinson, of whatever political persuassion, and it is a shame that it is one of the useful ones who has fallen by the wayside. Believe me, there are plenty there in the chamnbers of Margate that contribute SFA and that, in itself, should be an offence. It is, after all, taking money by false pretences.
Well Tom I posted about this on the 16th of November when I heard about the offence on Twitter and again yesterday when the court case came up and she was fined and banned, mainly because the first lot of details were completely wrong.
DeleteOn both occasions I avoided tagging it with her name or using it in the post title because I have a fairly high internet presence and don’t want this incident to come up every time her name if googled.
I haven’t said I think she should resign over it or anything like that and you seem to agree that it ought to have been posted.
Before posting I checked with the conservative group to see if there were any mitigating circumstances that I could publish with the post.
Now considering how I could have posted and titled it, how I could have tagged it with her name as link at the bottom of the post, what is it you think I should have done differently?
All that said my main object was to try and clarify the drink driving situation, for instance, to make a chap who may have and aperitif, share a bottle of red over the main, a bottle of white over the sweet, a couple of glasses of port with the cheese, consider driving in the morning especially if he topped it off with a brandy
Are you comparing the good lady with a piss artist, Michael. No wish to labour this, but having already posted the lady's drink driving offence did you really need to clarify precisely how many milligrams over the limit she was. Still sounds like milking the bad Tory news for maximum effect, but it is your blog to do with as you wish.
DeleteSorry Tom you have lost me here, first you say the thing should have been reported, now you seem to be saying I should have stuck with the earlier and inaccurate report.
DeleteAs far as I know I haven compared her with anyone or anything.
Simply referring to your chap who partook of the juice with every course and then washed it down wirh a brandy. How does rhis fit in with this lady. Must admit you are very skilled at implying the worst.
DeleteSorry Tom, this level of drinking would be fairly normal among the adults of my childhood, going up to town watching a show and eating at Roules or the club.
DeleteThis quote relates to Winston Churchill “One visitor from the period noted: "There is always some alcohol in his blood, and it reaches its peak late in the evening after he has had two or three scotches, several glasses of champagne, at least two brandies, and a highball…”
As Tom says once found guilty "That should be that". What a joke. Part of the criminal system in this country is that we have open courts and anyone found guilty of a serious offence can expect to have the details exposed. I hope Tom is not suggesting that crime is not reported in the press or does he mean that local councillors should not have their crimes reported?
ReplyDeleteNo, I am not suggesting crimes should not be reported, but it is the use of them for political point scoring and the constant resurrection of bygone misdeeds that I object to. I think the tax paying public of Thanet deserve more for their money than a bunch of baying morons shouting silly names at each others as seems to pass for political leadership in Thanet.
DeleteTom,
DeleteFollowing the point in your final sentence: Over the weekend we had an interesting house guest. He had once served on the council of a large and diverse London Borough. We got around to talking about TDC in general and Pleasurama in particular. I put the argument to him that TDC was not corrupt, just monumentally incompetent. He took the opposite view and explained that in his experience all local councils are corrupt; which is why he left local politics.
I took his point. However the evidence still suggests to me that the our problem with TDC is not corruption but rather incompetence. Tom, I will quote you if I may, "I think the tax paying public of Thanet deserve more for their money than a bunch of baying morons shouting silly names at each others as seems to pass for political leadership in Thanet." Personally, I get the impression that some of them are just not bright enough to be corrupt.
Tom, you mention monumental incompetence and your friend saying it was corruption. I think you were both right. The monumental incompetence applies to both officers and Members and the corruption in the main is the Members who use the Council for their own personal objectives and engrandisement, although I feel sure these are in a minority. The vast majority don't realise they are being used. If the two main parties could keep these types out of local politics and attract more decent candidates, and the Council recruited some professional officers there could be hope.
ReplyDeleteIt happens everyday to people from all walks of life, just beccause it happens one of our councillors we are going of on one. Personally I dont care, yes she was silly but she is still the same person today as she was yesterday other than all of you can now say how bad she is.
ReplyDeletePresumably you'd care if she ran someone over while drunk and they ended up in a wheelchair or worse. At least this has taught her a lesson, as well as stopped her being a potentially lethal menace to others.
DeleteOh, but for the grace of God go I! Don't you just love self righteous twits like 3:47. Probably never had a drink, found himself in the wrong bed or pointed out an error in his favour in his change in a shop, pays all his taxes on time and never does 1 mph over the speed limit. The pope has him on the list for sainthood.
DeleteI have to say that until Tom brought it up, neither of Michael's posts on this subject had made much of the party politics of the matter. The Anon trolls of course had leapt in with both feet, but surely we've learnt to ignore them? So how was Michael supposed to report this - "Cllr Shirley Tomlinson, who belongs to an unspecified political party..."? I'm as fed up with the local politicians as you are Tom, and still think of myself as a Conservative, but sadly most of the recent miscreants have been from the Blue side of the Chamber. To restore some degree of credibility the local Conservative Party needs to take a strong line with all those that wander - two at the moment with one pending. Only then will they be able to escape the accusation of croneyism and it would also put some sort of moral gap between them and the Labour group by comparing their rigour with the soft treatment of Mike Harrison.
ReplyDeleteI told a friend of mine from Wiltshire about the goings on in TDC - TIGs, minority groups held in power by single-interest "parties", hate calls, fraud trials, Council meetings dominated by gay marriage debates, drink/driving prosecutions, prime council sites derelict for eleven years, the lot. Frankly, she didn't believe me.
Would anyone, Tim, but sadly that is Thanet and has been for a while. I did not object to Michael posting this news, just his repeating it simply to emphasise the level of juice imbibed. Be that as it may, I agree with you wholeheartedly that we need a real shake up of quality from the current choice between brain dead do nothings and brighter folk inclined to a bit of assorted villainy.
DeleteIt wasn't a repeat, it was new news, convicted, fined and more than double the amount of drinking.
DeleteMy posts
Friday, 1 June 2012 Another councillor cops it for homophobia
Thursday, 31 May 2012 Another councillor in the in the homophobia frame
Mike Harrison and Ken Gregory respectively, were also done in the same way keeping the councillors names out of the titles and tagging.
I do try to be even handed here and am very conscious that this site gets over 1,000 reads a day and anything I post on has a high presence on the search engines.
I do genuinely think I am being both even handed and restrained when it comes to local councillors.
I do however think that the main fault here lies with the local political groups, clear and timely information about this sort of situation would be best published by them.
The Democratic Services Department at Thanet District Council say that Drink Drive Councillor Shirley Tomlinson, has NOT stood down from the Thanet Conservatives or the Shadow Cabinet despite her leader Bob Bayford saying she did. That would mean that she is still being paid for being a shadow cabinet member. Will she now pay the extra money back to the council taxpayer?
ReplyDeleteshe is still being paid as a member of the shadow cabinet despite pretending last week to step down
DeleteI think that a person can be determined by the choices they make in life. If a councillor cannot make a simple decision not to drive whilst drunk, then is this the sort of person we in Thanet should want making decisions which influence our lives on a daily basis ?
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying she has suddenly become a "bad person" overnight but councillors hold a position of responsibility in our community. If this was a school teacher, the public would be calling for their head on a block.
Councillors need to remember that they work for us.
So no school teacher has ever had a drink drive conviction and not lost their job as a result. Seriously you are having a laugh, I hope?
DeleteAnon @ 4:44 - Try reading my post again and maybe this time read what I've actually written.
DeleteIf your Kid got killed by a drunk driver you might not be so forgiving. You still like her!!!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWell I read it again and you are saying that, if the public heard of it, they would be crying for the head of a teacher who was guilty of drink/driving. Isn't that precisely what you and others are doing here with this councillor. Oh, and in case you had not noticed, councillors get a pittance for their time and effort compared with teachers.
DeleteI am not saying she should not go, but the baying for blood by the lefty mob is all a bit hard to stomache.
Erm, sorry I don't see anywhere that I have said she should go. What they earn is irrelevant. And let's be honest here, once the money from the brown envelopes has been added up, it's hardly a pittance is it ? I've never known a councillor (of any party) to be on the breadline.
DeletePersonally, I don't believe that she should be "sacked" (can a councillor be sacked ?) however I do believe that she should resign from the council and then she could put herself forwards for re-election and allow the electorate to decide if they want somebody with a conviction for drink-driving to represent them. If she is then re-elected then so be it, the residents she represents have made their choice. Previously they elected her as she was "then" and not as she is "now" - a convicted criminal.
I should add that my opinions are not based on any political leanings - in fact I had to look this lady up to find out who she was. I would say this for any councillor who is paid out of my taxes.
DeleteFair enough, RossM, but on that basis John Worrow and Ian Driver should also put themselves up to be re-elected, not being as they were when first chosen to represent their wards. As for councillors not being on the breadline, several TDC ones have been on assorted benefits.. That should mean those ones are hardly rich.
DeleteCan I just say that I am not implying, nor do I believe that all members of TDC, Councillors and Officials, are either incompetent, corrupt or both. However, a few of them are. How else do we explain Pleasurama and Dreamland for example.
ReplyDeleteSome of them may not know that they are corrupt. For they may have been corrupted by flattery. The sort of situation where for example a contractor explains to a Councillor or Officer how 'you are the only person with the intelligence to understand the value of my proposal, you keep an open mind about new ideas, I trust you' and so on. This will start off in a small and innocuous way. The corrupter will then withdraw their praise and friendship when their hapless victim does not play ball on the bigger issue. In response the victim will seek to appease their corrupter in order to regain their approval and friendship. Believe me, this technique works and is nigh on infallible in the hands of a master. It was much favoured by the KGB for use on Western sources.
An opinion on pleasurama!
Deleteanonymous 8:24PM,
DeleteI thought you said that you would no longer be commenting on my posts. Seems that you cannot resist trolling away.
Anonymous 8:24PM aka by many other transparent disguises,
DeleteOn reflection I realise that my earlier reply was unhelpful. You have posted several times, in various guises, seeking my opinion presumably because this was important to you. Therefore, if you will let me have your name and e-mail address I will inform you of any opinion I may hold, on any subject in which you have declared an interest. I cannot say fairer than that.
The Democratic Services Department at Thanet District Council say that Drink Drive Councillor Shirley Tomlinson, has NOT stood down from the Thanet Conservatives or the Shadow Cabinet despite her leader Bob Bayford saying she did. That would mean that she is still being paid for being a shadow cabinet member. Will she now pay the extra money back to the council taxpayer?
ReplyDeleteSEE HERE http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=114 AND CALL THE COUNCIL WHO WILL CONFIRM THIS
Title: Shadow Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning
Party: Conservative
Ward: Garlinge Ward
Other councillors representing this Ward:
Councillor Ken Gregory
she is still being paid as a member of the shadow cabinet despite pretending last week to step down
ReplyDeleteJust think about how much damage could be caused if inebriated councillors were driving the council. The whole area could resemble a car crash. Oops.
ReplyDeleteAh yes,she competed in it's a knockout for margate v broadstairs v ramsgate in the early 70's on bbc tv!
ReplyDeleteNah TDC competed, it was It’s a Knockout between Ramsgate and Margate, they both got knocked out
Delete